Harold Wilson Quotes

We are redefining and we are restating our socialism in terms of the scientific revolution.

… science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilization.

Give us 20 years, and you'll not recognize this country!

Do you believe that life today is the same as it was 10 centuries ago? This tremendous change was produced by the West. Who else produced it?

The modernizing elite in the technologically and economically poor nations responded to colonialism by seizing the power of the state and using it to change their societies, hoping to achieve justice at home and economic and cultural parity abroad. The politics of changing traditional social structures and processes by using state power did not always result in social progress and economic development, but it did lead to state supremacy and autocracy. In the more extreme cases autocratic regimes were transformed to either forward-looking or reactionary totalitarianism-of socialist-Marxist, fascist, or religious-fundamentalist types. These systems clearly failed or are failing. But at the time they were adopted, to many they represented hope and a promise of economic change, distributive justice, and a better future.

The capitalist process shapes things and souls for socialism.

The capitalist world could not help giving birth to the socialist, but now the socialist world should not seek to destroy by force the ground from which it grew. Under the present conditions this would be tantamount to the suicide of mankind. Socialism should ennoble that ground by its example and other indirect forms of pressure and then merge with it.

We live in a scientific revolution. In such an epoch of revolutionary change, those who identity laissez-faire with liberty are enemies, however unwitting, of democracy

Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the social democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim.

I appreciate the change associated with people's growth, but I don't like the changes in our lives. I came to Mumbai in 1945, so imagine my acceptance of the massive changes around. I have witnessed every kind of revolution.

Our power creates collective production in the service of the people and the revolution, destroys exploiting production, transforms individualistic producers into producers integrated into the collectivity.

Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China's society is opening.

Where men had once howled and hacked at one another, and fought nip-and-tuck with nature as well, the machines hummed and whirred and clicked, and made parts for baby carriages and bottle caps, motorcycles and refrigerators, television sets and tricycles-the fruits of peace.

What is applicable is to understand that first of all China has undergone a huge revolution in the last years. Anyone who saw China as I did in 1971 - and for that matter even in 1979, because not much had changed between 1971 and 1979 - and sees China today, knows one is in a different economic system.

I think the modernization of Chinese economy and Chinese society is a prime concern.

Since the war [WWII], the world has been rushing forward at an unprecedented and exhilarating speed … Yet Britain lags behind, lacking the will or the plan which can bring this future within the reach of us all.

Think back to the time when Agriculture was not labor efficient. We have lost all these jobs. But I don't think anyone is too sad about it.

China itself is now in the process of sloughing off not only the communist system, but also those outdated parts of Confucianism that prevent the rapid acquisition of knowledge needed to adjust to new ways of life and work.

There just isn't a version of 'socialism in one country' around in the 21st century. I think it's really important that we don't fall for this nirvana of 'Let's just get out, and we can create a socialist Britain.'

We have built cities, developed industry and cultivated agriculture - we have transformed the State of Israel into an example and symbol for many other countries in the world.

I am not an economist... I am not a business technician. I am a revolutionary, and I do what is right for an economic revolutionary.

Russia was the last to leave the 19th century and the most rapid to enter the mandates of the 20th century. It was not an evolution. It was not a slow process.

Indian cinema is changing not because of outside pressure but because of inside pressure. Society is changing. Obviously, ideas change because of globalization, because of the huge middle class that is mostly first generation.

The longer a region is in contact with modern civilization, the higher the degree to which the society in the region is civilized.

As our farms and factories grew more efficient, they accounted for a shrinking share of our economy. And the more productive agriculture and manufacturing became, the fewer people they employed.